


A denial of space, time, and the individual I

by eldritcher



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A spot of metaphysics, Crossdressing, Epilogue to Omphale, Established Relationship, Happy Ending, Love, M/M, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29087085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldritcher/pseuds/eldritcher
Summary: Harry is philosophical. Voldemort is resigned. They make it work.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Voldemort
Comments: 13
Kudos: 26
Collections: Epilogues to eldritcher's old stories





	A denial of space, time, and the individual I

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Omphale](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/751986) by eldritcher. 



> Epilogue to [Omphale](https://eldritcher-hp-fics.dreamwidth.org/20283.html).

"Can you move it to the left?"

Voldemort patiently moved Harry's latest award to the left. They were running out of room on the shelves of their sitting-room to display Harry's many awards.

Who would have known that a foundling's tale would heal the denizens of the war-torn, post-apocalyptic ruined world they lived in? 

"A few inches to the right. It needs to be exactly aligned with the Devon Lit-Witch Club's award."

Hermione refused to fetch and carry for Harry.

"You are magically disabled," she had said, the last time he had wheedled her to help him with displaying his awards in yet another arrangement. "There is nothing wrong with your limbs. Find a ladder and get to it yourself!" 

She refused to enable his laziness. She had seen enough of it while he was a prisoner in his own home, when he had paraded about in Walburga's clothes, sighing and languishing in ennui as a Victorian maiden. 

Voldemort was shifting the award, a delicate glass sculpture of a man's torso in women's lingerie, moving it a few inches to the right. 

"Maybe an inch to the left," Harry said thoughtfully. 

The award crashed to the floor, and glass splintered as a thousand rain drops of blue and red. Harry turned to Voldemort, to find him staggering with a hand pressed to his heart, wand at his feet inert. 

"What is it?" He asked, frightened, rushing to support Voldemort before he collapsed.

Time shrunk and dilated. The fire in their hearth froze, and wrinkles rose new on his fingers, as Voldemort struggled to hold to life. 

Harry's hands were shaking too much to pick up the Floo powder. 

\---------

Hermione joined Harry at St. Mungo's. He sat dully on the floor, head in his hands, refusing her attempts to guide him into a chair. He had sunken to the floor, as if his legs had been cut, when the Healers had barred the doors behind them. 

If the passers-by found the sight of him curious, dressed as he was in long green skirts and a bodice of soft yellow, they said nothing, sensing the mortal terror he had been pitched into.   
  
"Harry, drink that water."

Hermione had been trying to get him to stay hydrated. It had been sixteen hours since the Healers had closed the doors behind them.

He shook his head. 

"Harry."

He drank the water. 

"Good." 

"It is his heart," he said quietly. "Slughorn and Malfoy kept him on Amorentia for years. The temporal dilation did not do him any favors." 

Voldemort's heart, whenever Harry dared to press an ear to it, had beat arrhythmic and weak. 

They had not come of the war intact. Harry had lost most of his magic. Even simple spells were inaccessible to him. His broomstick no longer responded to his touch. The wards on their home were blood wards, to ensure that he could enter and leave. Voldemort had painstakingly stripped out from the house every magical artifact Harry could not use. 

On most days, they knew each other well, to be prop and crutch. 

Beren had found Luthien. Luthien had saved Beren. And theirs had been the love of a mortal world, the love of men doomed to die.

Harry should not have asked Voldemort to help him. The taxing nature of-

"Moving your awards is hardly taxing," Hermione said briskly. "Be reasonable, Harry." 

"I shouldn't have-"

"He is repairing the world," Hermione said, brooking no argument. "It is draining him, as you knew it would." 

Her words stretched in a slur, dilated by Time's distortion. 

Voldemort was alive. He was struggling not to die, not to leave Harry behind. To shield his battered heart, his magic was uncoiling Time. 

It reassured Harry, even if there were panicking Healers everywhere, as they sought to deal with an influx of the wounded due to various Time-related accidents: the splinched, the burned, boys fallen from their broomsticks, and many more. 

"Harry," Hermione said sternly.

"I know, I know," he whispered, rubbing his eyes. "Let me see what I can do."  
  
\-------

"Harry!" 

Walburga's portrait took in the sight of him with increasing alarm. 

"What happened?" 

"He had a stroke." 

"My father died of a stroke," she said softly. 

Pollux Black had waited by his library window, and only a plane tree had witnessed his hearkening for a foundling's return. His boy had come back, after many years, alone and changed, and Pollux had died of a stroke. 

Decades later, Harry had been held a prisoner in this house of the Blacks, and he had amused himself wearing Walburga's clothes. 

Then he had taken for himself the foundling Pollux had waited for.

Hercules had ensnared the warrior queen, Omphale, who had held him captive. He had worn her clothes and she had found him irresistible. By the end, he had married her and bound her to him. 

Voldemort had knelt before Harry, when he had seen Harry for the first time in silk and velvet. Harry had claimed the foundling as his own, as Hercules had once claimed Omphale as his wife. 

Harry stood before Walburga's portrait, alone and careworn, and Time shifted sharp about him, and the wallpapers faded before his eyes. 

He went to the library, where on the wall was still stuck many notes scribbled during the days and nights he had been a prisoner appointed to find Time in return for parole. The Wizarding World had lost Time after Harry, Ron, and Hermione had destroyed the Time-Turners in their Fifth Year. 

He had found Time. 

Here, in a bathtub of wine, dressed in Walburga's lingerie, reading Pollux Black's tale of a foundling, surrounded by children's tales and the great works of relative physics, he had found Time. He had not had to look far afield.

He lit the candles in their sconces and settled down to his researches, as about him Time distorted once more, pumping in and out as heartbeat. 

\------

"I thought I might find you here."

Harry shook his head, overwhelmed. Voldemort's exhaustion was palpable, but he wore a chipper face for one who had nearly died. 

"I brought you something."

"Please don't tell me you shopped in St. Mungo's gift shop." 

"I did not think teddy bears would endear me to you." 

Harry took a deep breath to ground himself and went to greet his lover. His hands were shaking as he cupped his foundling's dear face. 

\-----

A bodice of blue velvet, with clasps of pearl at the shoulders, to hold it to modesty. 

Harry grinned. It was Milanese, he could tell. Cut and stitched to his measurements. 

"Close your eyes," he ordered, and rushed to ready himself. 

He had Walburga's silk hose and garters in blue, stacked away somewhere in his old room. He hoped it would not reek of mothballs. Should he wear undies? The dilemma!

Voldemort laughed, pleased by Harry's enthusiasm. Harry scowled at him, but he was keeping his eyes closed as ordered, so he decided to forgive the merriment.

Harry put on his accoutrements, glanced at the mirror and nodded. He no longer had the comeliness of his youth, but he cut a striking form nonetheless, pale flesh resplendent against the blue of bodice and knickers and hose.

"Look at me," he said, drawing near to Voldemort, pressing a kiss to his cheek. Voldemort's hands came greedy to his waist, keeping him close.

"You are a sight," Voldemort breathed, as if seeing him once again for the first time. He waved a hand and the curtains opened wide, leaving Harry splashed in bright sunlight. 

Harry laughed and spread his legs, cocking his hips, letting his hair sway over a shoulder, placing a hand over his crotch, where his cock pressed wet against the silk in ruddy want. He had never felt freer, basking in the sun's warmth upon his back, basking in Voldemort's gaze.

"I have to admit that I am only an instant away from kneeling before you and sucking your cock."

"After I have had you," Harry decreed. 

Once again, as they had before the world had been ruined, Voldemort bent to Harry's whim, and his sharp, stuttered gasps were melody when silk and velvet brushed against his bared skin. Harry tugged his silk knickers to the side and fucked Voldemort just so, a hand at his throat and another over his navel.

"We have ruined your clothes." 

"We must keep the Milanese lingerie makers in business." 

\-----

"I promise it shan't happen again." 

"You can't promise me that," Harry said softly. 

"I will always return to you." 

Had he sung to Pollux Black the same, sweet words? Pollux had waited in vain, watching a plane tree across the street where birds came to roost. 

"Ours is an existence in denial of space and time and the individual I," Voldemort said solemnly, and his words were vows. 

The denial of space and time and the individual I. 

Harry had returned from death. Voldemort had torn himself into nonexistence to save him.

Luthien and Beren died together, in denial of space and time and the individual I. Harry's worry mellowed. 

"I shall hold you to your words." 

Voldemort kissed him for his gall. 

Harry laughed and shifted closer, to place an ear about that arrhythmic heart entrusted to his keeping. 

"Can you summon a blanket? I am cold tonight."

Magic had once been a good insulator and a source of immunity. He was easily cold. He caught the flu as easily as a Muggle did. 

Voldemort summoned the woolen black blanket Harry had purchased in Leeds.

"The tartan." 

Voldemort patiently sent it back, and then fetched the tartan, uncomplaining. 

"I feared you might cease to ask me," he admitted. 

"I would have. Now that you have sworn to me another ending, I am not afraid."

That avowal of trust earned Harry a kiss to the crease of an eyelid.

Laughing, he held his foundling close, in denial of space and time and the individual I.   


* * *

**Author's Note:**

> [Omphale](https://eldritcher-hp-fics.dreamwidth.org/20283.html) is on Dreamwidth, with the rest of the older stories.


End file.
